


What brought us to this.

by Kaesteranya



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-16
Updated: 2011-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesteranya/pseuds/Kaesteranya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shoulda, woulda, coulda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What brought us to this.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the 31 Days prompt for May 27, 2010.

He should have been able to catch it, Gintoki tells himself. He should have seen it coming, should have put all of the pieces together, should have known how to line it all up, reading in them the effects and the causes, causes and effects. Deep-rooted insanity was never a result of something quick and sudden – many people always thought that it was, and often pinned the blame of their friends going over the edge on this moment or that battle, on the loss of this person or the result of some unfortunate circumstance at one single point in time. In truth, it always came about as a result of a series of events stacked up like a staircase, leading all the way up to somewhere that no man should ever go to.

 

This is the reason why he suddenly finds himself looking back when he swore that he never would, sifting through the past with the aid of idle nights and a little sake. He draws his oldest memories up from where he’s drowned them, remembering the days before that fatal scar, back when all of them had been a little younger and a little stronger and a little more idealistic; back when some of them still believed that maybe there was hope, maybe they had a fucking chance. When he doesn’t find anything, he goes back even further, to when they were three-not-four/two-not-three, when they used to walk by the river side following the man who had saved all of them with kind words and a smile; back when his palm had been small enough to fit right into his master’s hand.

 

He should have known sooner, perhaps, that Takasugi Shinsuke would eventually lose his mind. There should have been _something_ – perhaps he just didn’t see it. There is, however, a quiet point somewhere between drunk enough and too drunk to remember his own name that he’s confronted with the possibility that he _couldn’t_ have known, that his old friend shouldn’t have ever broken down, that there wasn’t any other cause beyond too much death and too much loss and not enough of him being there to pull Takasugi back from going over the edge.

 

So it was the ‘maybe’, in the end, that had stayed his hand, that made him hesitate and kept his blade just short of going for Takasugi’s neck. It’s the thought that perhaps there was no one else to blame for this but himself.


End file.
